Such airplanes with stub tail have been known from several documents. U.S. Pat. No. 5,114,097 discloses a passenger airplane with two engines integrated in the fuselage tail, which receive their intake air via an air inlet arranged on the top side of the fuselage. The air taken in is fed to the engines via a long diffusor. According to British Patent No. GB 1,041,048, the intake air for two engines located in the fuselage tail flows through inlets arranged in the form of ears on the fuselage and is then sent into diffusor channels. A tailless STOL aircraft, in which the intake air is fed to the two engines through long channels, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,033,526. German Offenlegungsschrift No. DE-OS 1,900,380 discloses an intake diffusor for a central jet engine integrated in the fuselage tail. The feeding of the intake air via long diffusors for two engines installed directly in the fuselage tail in large-capacity airplanes, which are also to be used as transport planes, has been known from German Offenlegungsschrift No. DE-OS 1,481,622.
All the airplanes described in the above-mentioned documents have essentially conventional configurations with long diffusors led through the fuselage tail for guiding the intake air for the engines. Even though these airplanes have less resistance due to the integration of the engines within the tail than those with engines arranged outside on the tail, they generally have the disadvantage that the tail terminates with relatively little space, and therefore it can hardly be used for receiving payload.
To reduce the air resistance of an airplane, it has furthermore been known from German Patent No. DE-PS 906,660 that the boundary air layer is completely drawn off. This boundary air layer is carried on the outer surfaces of the parts of the: airplane exposed to the relative wind (wings, fuselage) in the direction of movement due to friction, and its relative velocity in relation to that of the airplane is reduced as a result.; The drawn off boundary air layer is fed to the devices to be fed with air (e.g., compressors of jet engines). The figures represented in the document show engines arranged as a whole in the front part of the fuselage or on the airfoils and a considerable expense for the devices would be encountered for implementing such a design.